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Eyes May Be Window To Sexual Orientation

NEW YORK (CBS NEWS) – A person’s pupils may reveal their sexual orientation, a new study finds.

Researchers at Cornell University used a specialized infrared lens to measure changes in pupil size while subjects watched erotic videos. The results revealed that for the most part, people’s eye changes when seeing an image of a certain gender corresponded with their stated sexual orientation.

Previous studies that tried to determine a subject’s sexuality measured genital arousal, which included invasive methods that they often found uncomfortable. Pupils have been shown to dilate – or widen – when people find something sexually attractive, according to the study authors.

“We wanted to find an alternative measure that would be an automatic indication of sexual orientation, but without being as invasive as previous measures. Pupillary responses are exactly that,” Gerulf Rieger, lead author and research fellow at Cornell’s college of human ecology, said in the press release. “With this new technology we are able to explore sexual orientation of people who would never participate in a study on genital arousal, such as people from traditional cultures. This will give us a much better understanding how sexuality is expressed across the planet.”